Single adults in homeless shelters are on the rise

Mayor Bill de Blasio has had some success in trying to curb a homelessness crisis that has exploded under his watch, but the number of single adults in shelter continues to reach record highs almost every month.

More than half a dozen providers and advocates surveyed by POLITICO pointed to some factors outside the city’s control, including a harsh real estate market for low-income renters, stagnating wage growth, and a population with greater needs as a cause for the spike.

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But they also cited factors that the city and the state could affect, including a housing plan that isn’t focused enough on homeless people, insufficient supportive housing, and a failure to adequately plan for people leaving prisons and jails.

“Given what is happening in the housing market, with displacement, conversion of low income housing, limited development of low income housing, we shouldn’t be surprised that we have more people in shelter, because we need it,” said Muzzy Rosenblatt, CEO and President of BRC, a homeless services provider. “Shelters aren’t bad, shelters are places people can go and have a right to go to.”

There were 15,302 single adults in shelter in July, 53 percent more than there were just before de Blasio took office and close to an all-time high. Single adults are a relatively small part of the shelter system, representing 28 percent of people in the city’s shelters while families make up the remaining 72 percent, but they look to be the city’s bigger challenge.

Some factors affecting singles also affect families, such as a tight real estate market with ever scarce affordable housing. But there are others affecting single adults more specifically and make the population harder to serve, such as the number of people leaving prison and the mental health needs of the population.

The low-rent housing market in New York City is tiny and shrinking. The latest survey of the city’s housing stock found that the vacancy rate for apartments at the low end — renting for less than $800 — was 1.15 percent in 2017, down from 1.87 percent in 2014 and for apartments renting between $800 to $999 the vacancy rate was 2.09 percent, down from 3.43 percent. That constitutes a “housing crisis” in official terms.

Furthermore, data from the city’s Rent Guidelines Board shows that New York has lost more than 145,000 rent regulated units since 1994, a critical stock of affordable housing. And a recent report found that lower income neighborhoods were seeing faster rent increases than higher income neighborhoods.

A tight real estate market can make it difficult to stay housed and difficult to find new housing once people are ready to leave shelter. Single adults spent more than 400 days in shelter on average before moving out in fiscal year 2018 — 60 percent longer than in 2011.

Government programs are having trouble filling the gap. The city’s rental assistance programs — which de Blasio restarted after his predecessor Michael Bloomberg ended a similar program in 2011 when the state cut funding — have served more than 52,000 people and without them the shelter population would likely be much greater.

But POLITICO reported in June that tenants are having problems finding apartments using the assistance vouchers due to the highly competitive real estate market and ongoing discrimination against people using government subsidy.

And many of the providers POLITICO spoke to said the mayor’s housing plan to build or preserve 300,000 units of affordable housing by 2026 isn’t providing enough affordable housing to deal with the shortage and the homelessness crisis.

A 2014 U.S. Census housing survey (the most recent with this level of data) found that there are 246,000 extremely low-income households that are severely rent-burdened. De Blasio’s plan will create only 31,500 units available to them. And the survey found 133,000 very low-income households that are severely rent-burdened, while de Blasio’s plan provides 43,500 units in that income range.

Advocates have criticized the way the plan was distributed and said it should do more to help the homeless. Of the 97,000 people that have moved out of shelter into permanent housing, roughly 4,200 moved intosubsidized housing, according to numbers provided by the city.

The Coalition for the Homeless criticized the fact that the number of units for homeless people decreased to 2,318 in fiscal year 2018, down 12 percent from the year before, though it is the second most since 2014. They are working with a group of providers and advocates calling for 10 percent of the mayor’s housing plan — 30,000 units — to go toward the homeless, including 24,000 units of newly built housing.

Other providers merely said that the housing crisis is so great and there just isn’t enough for any income group.

“I would like to see more of everything. More for homeless, yes, but more for everyone,” said Rosenblatt, pointing as an example to people that work at his shelters, and in similar jobs, who also need more affordable housing.

The city Department of Housing Preservation and Development defended the affordable housing plan, saying it’s the most aggressive in the city’s history.

“Under Housing New York, HPD has revamped virtually all of its programs to reach deeper affordability, while setting aside more housing for the homeless,” said HPD spokeswoman Libby Rohlfing. ”As a result, 40 percent of the affordable housing financed to date serves extremely and very low income residents and roughly 10 percent of all rental units are dedicated to homeless New Yorkers.”

Providers also pointed to a shortage of a specific type of affordable housing, called supportive housing, that comes with services and helps people with mental health needs, substance abuse or other barriers stay housed.

On three previous occasions, New York City mayors and New York State governors agreed on joint plans to build supportive housing. But de Blasio and Cuomo could not. Instead, the two went their separate ways, each announcing their own plans.

Together, their plans will yield 35,000 new units in 15 years but in the meantime, there will remain a shortage and some people will stay in shelter awaiting a unit.

“The fact that even after the three [previous state and city] agreements, there was still a gap between available units and need — with four people eligible for every one unit available — is the reason why the city stepped up with the 15/15 plan to produce supportive housing units at a much higher rate than before,” said Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks.

Supportive housing could be particularly important as some of the providers said it seems like there are more homeless single adults with mental health needs and with greater mental health needs than there were in the past. According to city data, about 40 percent of single adults in shelter say they have mental health needs. The city Department of Homeless Services has been increasing spending on mental health services in shelters, budgeting $151.9 million in fiscal year 2018, up almost 60 percent from 2014.

Finally, many providers pointed to the decrease in institutionalization, including the decrease of people in state prisons and city jails as another reason for the rise in single adults in shelters. According to city data, the number of people in city jails has decreased 31 percent since 2008 and the number of people in state prisons has decreased 22 percent.

Last winter, NY1 reported on the “prison to shelter pipeline,” documenting people that leave state prison and go to city shelters. According to DHS, roughly 1,500 people in city shelters are on parole and were recently released from prison.

Government data shows that the single adult shelter population started increasing in 2008, around the same time that the city’s jail population started decreasing and the state prison population was decreasing as well.

Not everyone who leaves prison becomes homeless, but some don’t have anywhere to go and head straight to the shelter system.

Providers said the decrease in the number of people in prisons and jails is a good thing, even though it’s driving up the shelter population.

“It’s the unintended consequence of good social changes.” Rosenblatt said. But the consensus was there needs to be support to help those people find stable housing.

“There could be more discharge planning in terms of when people come out,” said JoAnne Page, the president and CEO of the Fortune Society, a nonprofit service provider for people reentering society from prison. She also acknowledged that there is also not enough housing available.

The state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said that they continue to work with people who are on parole and in the shelters to help them find permanent housing.

"Localities are responsible for housing homeless individuals and families with oversight from the state. In New York, we do all we can to help prepare individuals for release after incarceration and work closely with the individual and the local authorities to help them identify proper housing," said Don Kaplan, a spokesman for Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Banks said he thinks there is more the city can do to work with the state to prevent people from going straight from prison into shelters.

“Clearly these are individuals who deserve a second chance and deserve a chance to get a home as opposed to homelessness," he said.

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